FILE:  HE

Cf:  JBC

 

ENROLLMENT

 

 

PURPOSE AND APPLICABILITY

 

It shall be the policy of the Orleans Parish School Board (OPAB) that its public schools shall be required to participate in the citywide common enrollment system which ensures equity of access, consistency, and fairness in the assignment of students to school.

 

The Superintendent shall be vested with a broad range of administrative and supervisory authority relative to the common enrollment system including the creation of administrative procedures required in order to enroll students into school, compliant with law, and policy.

 

The provisions of the policy listed below shall apply to all type 1, 3, and 3B charter schools and direct run schools located in Orleans Parish.

 

The section shall be interpreted and applied in alignment with enrollment requirements for charter schools included in policy HA, School Board Chartering Authority, of OPSB Policy.

 

DEFINITIONS

 

  1. Priority: a priority is a grouping of applicants that is used to order applicants prior to ordering by random number.

  2. Guarantee: a guarantee permits students to enroll at the school for the upcoming year without the submission of an application.

  3. Full priority: a priority for which up to 100% of available seats, after accounting for guarantees to the school, can be prioritized to applicants with this priority.

  4. Partial priority: a priority that includes less than 100% of available seats after accounting for guarantees to the school.

  5. Closing school priority: is a full priority for applicants currently in grades K-11 who do not have a guarantee for the upcoming school year due to a closure of an OPSB charter or direct-run school, where no provision for a guarantee to another school has been made.  The priority shall not apply for admission to Kindergarten, and 9th grade.

  6. Sibling priority: is a full priority that applies only to applicants who have a sibling in a non-terminal grade enrolled at the school in the current school year for the first application round, or assigned to the school for the future school year for subsequent application rounds.

  7. Geographic priority: is made up of two partial priorities which are first: proximity for up to 25% of available seats and second: geographic zone.  The geographic zones shall be standardized across the school district and the maximum percentage of seats which may be assigned based on geographic priority shall be capped at 50% of available seats.

 

ORDER OF ASSIGNMENT TO SCHOOL THROUGH THE SCHOOL MATCH

 

Each applicant shall be assigned a random number as a component of the school matching process, and shall be assigned to school in order of priority (if applicable), then by random number.

 

  1. The standard order of priorities shall be Closing School Priority, Sibling Priority, Geographic Priority, and then all other applicants.  For schools which do not implement a priority group, the priority group shall be omitted and the order of the remaining priority groups shall remain unchanged.

  2. In limited cases, a school may have priorities which do not conform to this standard set of priorities.  For example, additional or different priorities may be implemented for schools pursuant to state law, such as: a corporate partnership priority (La. Rev. Stat. Ann. §17:3991.1); mission-specific admissions requirements (La. Rev. Stat. Ann. §17:3991); priorities related to increasing access for economically disadvantaged students or students with special needs (La. Rev. Stat. Ann. §17:3991); or feeder pattern priorities approved by the Superintendent.  All such priorities must comply with policy HA, School Board Chartering Authority, and be described in the charter school’s operating agreement.  All such priorities shall be partial priorities that must come in order after closing school priority.

  3. In an instance where there are more applicants than available seats, applicants are organized by priority group, and those with higher priority will be considered for placement over those with lower priority.  Priorities cascade such that an applicant with multiple higher priorities will be considered before an applicant with lower ranked, fewer, or no priorities.

 

New policy:  June 11, 2020

Revised:  March 23, 2023

 

 

Ref:    Board minutes, 6-11-20, 3-23-23

 

Orleans Parish School Board